


Reunite Johnny with the Love of his Life

by mermoon



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Gender-neutral pronouns for Boss, Other, past aisha/johnny, will add more characters as they make appearances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-03-15 05:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13606590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermoon/pseuds/mermoon
Summary: Johnny makes a choice, but things don't turn out the way he expects.Begins at the end of Saints Row: Gat ouf of Hell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses a headcanon of mine in which Josh Birk didn't press the alarm button in the bank in SR:TT by accident.

_Reunite Johnny with the love of his life._

Johnny flips through the pages and stops on this one, stealing a look at the glowing light above. There ever was only one person who could have earned that title; No one but Aisha had made Johnny even consider settling down.

The illustration on the page is filled with clouds and bright light. Does that mean Aisha is in Heaven? Is this _Johnny's_ chance to get to Heaven? He sure as hell wouldn't like to take her to… well, Hell.

He flips through the other options again.

One. _Be bestowed with answers to all the questions of the universe._ Johnny prefers to leave things like that to others. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, right?

Two. _Be crowned the new king of Hell._  Johnny smiles. Boss sure would be proud of this one. But if Johnny has any say in it, he'd rather not see Dane Vogel's undying face ever again. And staying in Hell would mean not seeing the Saints again. No, thank you.

Three. _Retcon the entire existence of the Saints to rebuild Earth._ He, along with everyone else, would have new, different lives and wouldn't know each other. The Saints have been Johnny’s entire life, and he’s not even sure he wants to know what would have become of him without them. And what of the Boss? They’d probably  _still_ end up becoming the president, ruling the galaxy, having the Earth explode… So, maybe not.

Four. _Find the Saints a new home world for what’s left of humanity._ With, what, 7 other people? What good would it to? Johnny huffs and turns the page in haste, forgetting that the red pods in the Zin spaceships house thousands and thousands of unconscious humans.

Five. _Be reunited with the love of your life._ The glowing pages make it very tempting. And he has so much to tell Aisha, so much to apologize for.

"If I choose this one, will the others be alright?" He asks, tapping the page.

The light above him shifts a little bit, as if to take a closer look at the book in front of Johnny.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You guess? I thought you were the fucking God!" Johnny lashes out. He needs to know. If he chooses Aisha, he probably won't see the others again. Will they turn out okay?

"What does that page say, I can't see for sure?"

"You're fucking with me."

"No, what does it say?"

Johnny's ears heat up as he reads directly from the page: "Reunite Johnny with the love of his life. There. Happy?"

"Ah, yes, that one. I'm pretty certain the… Saints will be alright."

 _Would it be irrational to punch God_ , Johnny wonders. Probably yes, since Johnny himself is now planning to retire in Heaven. Wonder if they have guns there? Or Freckle Bitch’s? Probably not.

"I'll choose this one then," Johnny says, once again tapping the open book.

"Which one?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, reunite me with the love of my life."

"Okay, okay, calm down."

The light shining in front of him goes out.

 

* * *

 

With a beating headache, Johnny opens his eyes and sees white. His cheek is resting against what is apparently a white leather couch. So, this is how you end up in Heaven, huh? With a hangover headache and cozy couches.

Johnny turns around, and notices a purple blanket on top of him. A chuckle escapes him. _Huh,_ that seems a little familiar. Looking around, the blur around him looks a little too familiar as well. You'd expect to be able to fucking see in Heaven without glasses. But no, instead he fumbles the floor for his glasses.

As he puts them on, he realises it's not Heaven he's in. Unless God has designed an apartment for Johnny after the _Purgatory_ , but that seems highly unlikely. He looks around, only to see no-one but the Boss in the room with him. The Boss is sprawled over the couch next to his, mouth gaping open and snoring loudly. They look younger, leaner.

Johnny jumps up from his couch. The heaviest case of Deja Vu hits him, he's been here before. Well, _sure_ he's been to Purgatory before. But he remembers this exact day, this exact moment, waking up after a party night, finding Boss there with them, looking at them as they sleep. Blaming it on the hangover, the staring.

When he finds his phone, he gets confirmation to his suspicions: It's May 25th, the day before their last bank robbery in Stilwater.

So, there's been a mistake. God has gotten it all mixed up, and brought him back here, instead of…

As Johnny's eyes shift from his phone back to the snoring Boss, he figures Aisha must be alive. But if things go the same way as before, the bank gig will ruin it all. Unless Aisha _not_ dying and Johnny _not_ ending up in a hospital and having no need for capital-R revenge strides them from that path.

Johnny looks around the club to find hints about the Saints' lives. Magazines are spread on the table. Johnny remembers them - as the Saints gained popularity, the media started following them and their doings. A paparazzi shot of the Boss graces the cover of this one, the cover also promising scoops about Shaundi and her tv show. A life-size cardboard Saints Flow can stands by the stairs, with Boss's face glued at the top. There's a box filled with posters. The Saints Movie posters, if Johnny recalls right. The Saints are obviously still gaining popularity. Johnny can't help but cringe a little.

The key to stopping things from taking the route they're bound to take is to stop the bank gig. And that can only happen if Johnny can convince Boss to call it off, that there has been a leak, a plot against them. He curses Josh Birk's name under his breath; if Johnny can prove him as the snitch, Boss is sure to lash out on Birk. They don't exactly handle deception well.

Johnny walks past the couch Boss is sleeping on and resists the urge to shove them awake. Before talking to them, Johnny needs to see Aisha. To make sure she’s alive. As he walks up the stairs of Purgatory, he searches his phone for her phone number.

It’s not there.

He tries to remember back. Back when Aisha died, it took him months, _years_ to delete her number. Even when he knew some new mobile customer had already claimed the number, he still refused to delete it. He probably still had it on his phone when the Syndicate happened. So why isn’t it here?

"Johnny?"

Johnny gets the shit scared out of himself. He spins around and drops his phone over the railing, and it continues to fall all the way down to the lower floor.

"Shit, man, sorry," Boss says, raising their hands apologetically. "What's up?"

Johnny glances over the railing, and sees his phone smashed to pieces on the stone floor. Ah well, it was only a phone.

"I, uhm, I was wondering -" Johnny starts but doesn't know how to continue. _So, has Aisha been around lately?_ Or how about: _Hey, Boss, I was just wondering if Aisha is still alive?_ That could turn out weird.

Boss studies his face, tilting their head ever so slightly. Wrinkles appear between their eyebrows, as they're trying to read Johnny. "You okay?"

On the other hand, Aisha can wait for now. There are more pressing matters at hand.

“Yeah, there’s actually something I need to tell you about.”

Johnny tells them what he believes he knows. That there’s been a leak, that they’re going to be ambushed at the bank, that Boss should call it off. He makes sure not to drop words like the Syndicate or Phillipe Loren, or airplanes, or _aliens_ for that matter, making sure Boss won’t question _how_ he knows all this. All Boss needs to know is that there’s been a leak, and the leak is most likely Josh Birk.

For a second, Johnny is sure Boss will turn him down. Because when the Boss decides something, no one can make them back down on it. _“Fuck them, we’ll just take them all down. Birk as well,”_ is what Johnny expects.

“Fine. But we gotta pay a visit to Birk then. Call Shaundi and call it off. But make sure Birk won’t find out,” Boss says, heading to their room. “No, wait, you smashed your fucking phone! Take mine. It’s on the bedside table.”

Johnny is dumbfounded for a moment, but follows them. He peeks into their room. It looks the same as Johnny remembers it. Has anything changed at all? Except for the fact that Boss seems… a little off. Had they always been this easy to convince?

He grabs Boss’s phone from the table as they rummage through their wardrobe. It’s the same old piece of crap they always had (not that Johnny’s phone was ever any better), with purple covers and a fleur de lis as a background photo. He finds Shaundi’s number and calls her.

Boss takes off their shirt, walks around shirtless while looking for a clean one, pulls it on and takes their baseball bat from the back of the wardrobe. When they turn back to Johnny, ready for war, Johnny turns away to look out the door while he speaks with Shaundi.

 

* * *

 

The baseball bat has blood spatters on it, as Boss towers over Josh Birk. In the other hand, they’re holding Josh Birk’s cell phone. The sun isn’t up yet, and the cars usually lining at the Freckle Bitch’s drive-in are absent.

Josh makes an attempt to get up from the ground, but meets the barrel of Johnny’s shotgun: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Boss gets down on one knee in front of Josh, their face close to his. Usually, if you are lucky enough to witness the Boss’s face that close, you end up not telling about it to anyone. Their speech is low, like a growl of an animal.

“One wrong move, and it’s goodnight for Nyteblayde.”

Knowing what a lightweight and an idiot the Boss really is, Johnny gets the chills from witnessing this side of them. In a twisted way, it makes him stupidly proud.

“I want you to find out who these DeWynter bitches are,” Boss says, straightening up and throwing the phone to Shaundi, “And what the Hell do they want.”

Josh wails something, but Boss is already done with him. They turn away and head back to the car, Johnny and Shaundi following suit. As Johnny looks over his shoulder, Josh is already sprinting off far behind them.

“You sure you wanna keep him alive?” Johnny asks as they climb inside the car.

The Boss’s voice is now back to normal, but still apparently pissed off: “He either runs and hides or runs and blabbers immediately to those DeWynter sisters. I’m fine with both.”

They drop Shaundi off to her apartment, with a word that she will come back to Purgatory as soon as she has something. Boss’s mood is rising as they drive – Boss is already talking about a Fist from Freckle Bitch’s for breakfast, and entertaining ideas on how to take down whoever they’re up against this time.

Johnny’s mind is elsewhere, and he only vaguely reacts to Boss’s talk. It’s still a little weird how much the Boss talks nowadays – not that Johnny minds, he actually prefers them this way, but sometimes it catches Johnny off-guard. He should be focusing on other things. On Aisha, for one. Is she even alive? But Boss has moved on to talking about the party last night, and that maybe Freckle Bitch’s isn’t a good idea after all. _Oh yeah_ , Johnny recalls the party before the bank job. He has a bad feeling he _danced_.

“Johnny, you ok?” Boss asks then. Johnny wasn’t always the talkative type, but maybe he’s been a little too quiet now.

Johnny glances at Boss, who’s stealing looks at him at every turn they can while still trying to focus on the road. _Man_ , how good it feels to be able to sit beside Boss, in a car, in _Stilwater_. Johnny never was a science fiction fan; He hates spaceships. Cars are more reliable. Well, except when Boss is driving.

“Focus on the road, asshole,” he says, giving them a slight smirk.

“Prick,” Boss mutters back at him, apparently satisfied.

They fall into a comfortable silence, as Boss steers the car off the highway, towards Marina. Johnny has no idea where they’re driving to, but he doesn’t really care. The streets are somewhat quiet, first rays of sunlight slowly creeping up the horizon.

“I wonder how Aisha is doing,” Johnny finally says, trying his best to appear absent-minded. When Boss doesn’t reply immediately, Johnny realises his mistake. He feels Boss’s stare scorching his cheek, but keeps his own eyes on the road.

“Last I heard she was on that tour,” Boss replies finally, matter-of-factly.

 _On tour?_ That means she is _alive_. And still making music, even! Johnny fights back to let out a relieved sigh.

“What made you think of her?” Boss asks. Behind them the Marina Boardwalk changes to Tidal Spring, and the rising sun casts a shadow on the car.

“Just, haven’t seen her in a while.”

Boss laughs, but it sounds forced. “In a while? It’s been fucking _years_. What, you miss her or something?”

Johnny stares at Boss, while they park the car in front of the Penthouse loft. He has no idea how to reply. Does he miss Aisha? Aisha is alive, but it seems they have separated years ago. Johnny guesses it never progressed further after Boss got knocked into coma and Johnny thrown in jail. Or maybe she survived the Akujis, and they broke up after that? Well, If not being with her means she stays alive, then Johnny’s fine with that.

Besides, _miss her_? It feels a little far-fetched. He can’t say he does. When God supposedly led Johnny to believe that he’d be reunited with _Aisha_ , he had prepared himself for… For retribution. Aisha was the love of his life, after all. But now, that they’re not even together…

_Why am I here?_

“Johnny, for fuck’s sake, I’m starting to sound like a broken record. You sure you’re okay?”

Finally, he turns his head away and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Yeah, just a headache. Why’re we here?” Yes, that’s good. Distract them.

“I’m pretty sure Pierce left some pizza here earlier. I’m starving,” Boss says, not that satisfied with his answer, but they still get out of the car.

The penthouse isn’t exactly empty with a few loitering Saints, who greet them as they stride in. Few of them are asleep. Johnny raises his hand in acknowledgement, but Boss makes their way to the kitchen and starts ransacking it.

_If I’m not here to be reunited with Aisha, then why?_

Without really thinking, Johnny follows Boss into the kitchen and sits on a vacant bar stool. His head is a mess. The Syndicate, the airplane, the crash, the president of the United States, Zinyak, Hell, Jezebel, Satan, God. Johnny wonders if he’s just been dreaming. Everything now seems so normal. As if nothing had ever changed. Maybe it was all a dream?

But that wouldn’t explain Aisha. Johnny remembers her, being with her, for years. Living together, planning life together. And that doesn’t explain how Johnny knows about Josh Birk, and about the Syndicate, which has all turned out to be real since they found out Birk is working for the DeWynter sisters.

A dream would, however, explain how Boss could become the president.

Suddenly Johnny lets out a laugh. Boss has found an abandoned two-days-old pizza and is stuffing it in their mouth. Boss, a president? Boss raises their eyebrow at Johnny. They raise the pizza slice in their hand offering it to Johnny, which makes Johnny smile even wider. _No thank you, President._

Should he tell Boss? About everything? Would they think he’s crazy? Of course they would. _Hey Boss, God sent me here to be reunited with the love of my life but instead I ended up here with you, and I was wondering if…_

His face falls, and even Boss catches the moment it happens, because they stop chewing and just stare at him.

“You finally dropped the last screw from your brain?” Boss snorts with a mouth filled with food.

“I gotta go,” he simply says, and with that he gets up and storms out of the apartment. Boss seems a little offended but hums their byes.

_Reunite Johnny with the love of his life._

_You’ve gotta be kidding me._  But, who said it was supposed to be Aisha? The contract never stated he’d be reunited with Aisha, that’s just what he assumed. But why in Stilwater, why at this moment? Johnny had _just_ been reunited with the Boss, back at the spaceship. If he’d wanted to be with them, he would have asked for a new home planet for the Saints. That way they would’ve been together, wouldn’t they? Is it still too late to punch God?

Realising he can’t take Boss’s car and no other vehicles are parked nearby, Johnny takes the El Train. The sun warms his face as Johnny rests his face to the window glass. He’s going back to Purgatory, he needs a nap, and food, and distraction. He should buy a new phone. And he should probably find out if he has an apartment of his own somewhere, since he’s apparently not living with Aisha. Johnny's thoughts drift to Zinyak, and his own impending doom. Did he manage to change the course of time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 22.7.2018 - I made a few edits to the first chapter. I originally posted this one in haste, wanting to release it but I've been cringing at the grammar and the language. Most of it was fixing grammar mistakes and twisting sentences a little, but the plot is still the same. What did change, though, is the last sentences where Johnny thinks of Zinyak. The original simply stated he headed back to Purgatory, but since he ends up not doing that in the second chapter, I decided to change the sentence :) Also there's no cardboard Boss anymore. It's a cardboard Saints Flow can with Boss's face. I'm sorry if this causes any inconvenience to anyone. Second chapter is coming soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Shaundi returns home after Boss and Johnny drop her off. She closes the door behind her and leans her back against it. Her breath is uneven, her heart is throbbing; It’s finally happening. Yes, Boss is still the same idiot as always, ordering Shaundi to look up Viola and Kiki is proof of that. So it has to be Johnny. Johnny knows something, if not _everything_. After years of being alone, it’s _finally happening!_

 

** A few years ago **

 

With a banging hangover, Shaundi wakes up. The white leather couch beneath her is covered in sweat.

She sits up slowly and is determined not to throw up. The Purgatory around her keeps on spinning and the statue of the winged Saint of all Saints seems to be glaring down at her. Her head feels heavy. Absent-mindedly she touches the tips of her dreadlocks.

Her memory comes back slowly, a bit by bit.

First, she realises her hair isn’t supposed to be on dreadlocks. In fact, it has been years since she cut them off. She’s even wearing the old purple bandana.

The headache seems to be beating behind her eye sockets. When was the last time she felt this hung-over? _On that note_ , she snorts to herself, _I’m not a fucking lightweight._ But then again, Shaundi hasn’t smoked a single joint since they lost Johnny. She hasn’t been drinking that much either. Besides, with the Earth gone they don’t exactly have access to alcohol.

The realization dawns on her as the spinning stops, and Shaundi lets her eyes wander around the room.

 _The Purgatory_.

“What the fuck –“, she whispers as she looks around. It’s the Purgatory alright – In its beautiful former glory. No one else is there, and a sense of dread creeps up her back. Something is about to happen.

Right on cue, a flashbang goes off at the top of the stairs. _The Sons of Samedi_.

Shaundi jumps up, grabs her phone, runs out the door and looks for a hiding place at the collapsed streets. The Samedi storm the place, wrecking everything in their way. Shaundi has no idea _how_ she ended up in this place and time, but the one thing she does know, is that she needs to call Boss immediately.

 

Shaundi watches her life re-play around her as she walks through it like in a dream. She knows exactly what to do and what people will say and how they will react. Boss is definitely their old self again, what with a little more murderous gleam in their eyes. Pierce used to be such a pain, with all the rivalry going on with Shaundi. And Johnny… Damn, it’s good to see him alive and kicking.

At first, Shaundi figures she should do everything she can to stop Aisha from dying. Eventually she realises however, that Aisha is not even around. Johnny nor Boss never mention her, and Johnny has an apartment of his own a few blocks from Purgatory.

One day there’s an ad on the radio for Aisha’s nationwide tour. Boss is driving their car and Shaundi is riding shotgun. Doing her best not to seem out-of-place, she studies Boss’s expression. There is no reaction, at least nothing too obvious. Is Boss clenching their teeth, just slightly? It could’ve been Shaundi’s imagination.

Things advance mostly as Shaundi remembers them. She learns that the Brotherhood has been taken down already, which means there is no way for her to help Carlos anymore. The Sons of Samedi are also taken down just like before. When Boss and Johnny piss off the Akujis, it’s Boss they come after, instead of Aisha. A big mistake, that. The whole ordeal is over much faster than before, with Johnny not ending up in hospital, and with no reason for a funeral. Or vendetta, for that matter.

After a few months Shaundi finally gives in to the fact that _this is her life now_. It’s not a dream, it’s not a hallucination, it’s not one of Zinyak’s virtual nightmares. She does her best to stay on track, to imitate the past in order to not change a whole lot of things. She cuts her hair, changes her style, cuts down drugs and goes along with the media frenzy surrounding the Saints.

But, she still doesn’t stop searching for clues of how she ended up this way. Does anyone around her remember the same things as she does? Why isn’t Aisha around? Shaundi makes a subtle joke about Boss becoming the President and gets either raised eyebrows or surprisingly good laughs out of it. But no signs of anyone knowing what she is talking about.

 _I am alone_ , she realises. So, she waits.

 

Months turn into years, and nothing spectacularly game changing happens in the lives of Saints. They gain popularity, just like they used to. As Shaundi’s hair grows longer, she also grows closer to Pierce, Johnny, and Boss. It had been _hard_ to prove herself to the others back then; doing it all over again had become almost overbearing. Not being taken seriously was infuriating. But she did prove herself, and somehow, she finally feels at ease with herself.

Shaundi had been fearing the bank gig that she knew would go wrong. The most important thing would be to save Johnny, no matter what. To stop the plane from crashing, to stop Zinyak from taking him away. She has had years in her hands to plan her course of action, but her options are limited. One option is to make sure the bank gig would never happen. Shaundi’s only concern is that if the gig gets cancelled, she wouldn’t know what to expect. She had gotten used to knowing what would happen beforehand. What if the universe wanted to fuck up their lives anyway, and make sure Johnny was taken away some other way? So, Shaundi decides to go for option number two. She would make sure, that if they end up in that plane again, no one would leave Johnny behind. Better yet if they would never end up in the plane to begin with.

However, the game changes, when Johnny calls him.

“Call it off. Make sure everyone knows the bank gig isn’t happening,” Johnny’s voice says over the phone. His voice seems a little off, distracted. He adds: “Meet us at Purgatory, we have stuff to do.”

 

* * *

 

The scars are gone.

Johnny twists and turns in front of the mirror, with his shirt lifted and eyes focused on his midriff. The scars – created by Jyunichi, Aisha’s killer – had served as a concrete reminder of what he had lost. But now they are gone.

A sigh escapes his lips, as he turns away from the mirror. The apartment is a mess. _His_ apartment.

On his way back to the Purgatory, Johnny had found a set of keys from his pocket. Aside from the keys to Purgatory, several other cribs and his motorcycle, one more key hung on his keyring. It wasn’t his, he knew, because it was Boss’s. He had seen it and its red handle countless times. It was the key to the Red Light loft, the first and only place Boss had owned after waking up from coma. Boss had held onto the apartment, even though they rarely stayed there. It was their private resting place, their _home_.

Was the Red Light loft Boss’s apartment still, or was it now Johnny’s? How did that happen? Were they living together, or did Boss stay somewhere else when they wanted a break from everything? Unlocking the door and entering the loft puts his mind at ease, however. It is undoubtedly _his_ apartment. The Boss had never been this messy, and the décor is completely different from before. 

Laughing aloud, Johnny had closed the door behind him. It felt weird – knowing that it was actually Boss’s apartment, but then again it wasn’t. It was his. In another universe, another time, Johnny had lived in _the suburbs_ with Aisha. But he had no expensively decorated house, no backyard or garage, no Aisha. It was obviously Boss who gave him this apartment, probably after they bailed him out of prison.

Apparently without Aisha in the picture, even the stabbing never occurred. He falls on his bed, hand resting on his abdomen where the scar used to be, and drifts back to a restless sleep.

Not much later a bang on the door wakes him up. Shaundi storms in before Johnny has time to stand up from the bed, so Shaundi meets a Johnny Gat with bed hair. Her mouth turns into a wide grin, before turning serious again.

“Why is your cellphone off?”

“Boss smashed it. I mean it fell,” Johnny says, finishing his sentence in a yawn.

Shaundi raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“It was an accident. I need to get a new one,” Johnny says, mostly as a reminder to himself. “Why are you here again?”

“We need to talk.”

 

* * *

 

“You do know that sounds crazy,” Shaundi remarks after a brief silence.

“And aliens and earth exploding and Hell don’t? You _know_ those things happened.”

“I know, I know. But… God? Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Johnny sighs and takes off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

“So, it’s _your fault_ I’ve been alone for these past few years.”

“Yeah. Look, Shaundi, I’m sorry.”

This Johnny is definitely the one she remembers back from the spaceship, back from before. The one Shaundi began to see as an older brother rather than just a gang mate. The one that everyone looked up to, even Boss. The one that they had already lost once.

Tears fill her eyes, but she fights them. Johnny notices, but ignores it out of courtesy. For two years she didn’t know what had become of Johnny. Boss had returned unharmed to the spaceship, and so had Kinzie. But Johnny didn’t return, and the next thing Shaundi remembers is waking up from Purgatory. She had feared the worst.

“Why for this long, though?”

“Why for what?” Shaundi dries her tears not-so-subtly, but she doesn’t care.

“Why did you return to an earlier time than I did? Since it was my decision, you know, to –.“ For some reason, Johnny cuts off his sentence.

“What did you ask God, exactly? Did you go ‘Hey, I wanna go back to Stilwater, so how about that?’” Shaundi does her best imitation of Johnny and lets out a laugh that’s more about how relieved she is to have Johnny here now than it is about her poor impersonation of him.

Johnny doesn’t laugh, though. He seems deep in thought.

“Something like that, yeah.”

A silence falls between them, but it’s a comfortable silence. Something is troubling Johnny, that much is obvious, but he won’t say what it is. Whatever it is, though, Shaundi can’t help but feel relieved. Happy, even.

“So… It’s just you and me now,” Johnny says and breaks the silence.

“I guess so,” Shaundi says with a nod. “So, what are we going to do? Up until now I always knew what was going to happen next.”

“I don’t know. What we always do?”

Shaundi smirks, and her eyes glimmer.

“Follow the Boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I'd like to note that I made a few small changes to the first chapter, but nothing too big! Check the end notes from chapter 1 for more info :) Hope you liked this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

“If Zinyak was still coming after you, I think he would’ve done it already,” Shaundi says, her voice almost a whisper.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Johnny says. ”It’s a little hard to tell with aliens and how their minds work, you know.”

Shaundi forces a smile, but it comes out crooked.

Her and Johnny’s foreheads are nearly touching each other. They have been sitting on the couches of Purgatory, crafting up their plan for what’s to come. They need to be prepared for the Syndicate, for Loren, for Zinyak. Johnny still believes the zin are a threat, even if Shaundi doesn’t. Only three days ago they were supposed to be on that cursed airplane, and he was supposed to be captured by Zinyak, leaving others believe he had died. Only three days ago they were supposed to be robbing a bank like nothing was wrong.

Their planning comes into a halt, as the elevator upstairs sounds a ping. Angry footsteps echo from the walls of the club, as Pierce turns the corner and comes into view.

“Someone care to tell me why Boss beat up our movie’s leading star?” he shouts.

“How did you find out about that?” Shaundi shouts back. She glances at Johnny, inaudibly asking if he still wants to continue their talk, but Johnny shakes his head. The distraction couldn’t come at a better time.

“Don’t you guys read the news?”

“Do I _look_ like I read the news?” Johnny snorts.

Pierce storms down with the day’s Stilwater Gazette in his hands. The paper lands on the table between Johnny and Shaundi, the frontpage headline clearly stating: “ _The Saints Movie Cancelled after Leader of the Saints Assaults Leading Actor_. _”_

Shaundi picks up the paper to read the frontpage news, and Johnny tunes out of the conversation. The past few days have already rekindled his discomfort towards their popularity. He is already tired of the photoshoots, the commercials, the brand lines, the paparazzi, the constant media show. There’s no one in Stilwater who doesn’t know who they are; more and more people are picking up the purple colours, and Johnny can’t even go to a strip club without being recognised (He had tried, but it had been too much of a hassle). _The Saints used to mean something,_ he likes to think. But what that something was, he isn’t sure anymore.

The elevator upstairs sounds another ping, and all three of them look upstairs. This time it is Boss who comes into view, waving a newspaper as they hop down the stairs.

“Have you guys _seen_ this shit?”

“Since when do you read newspapers?” Johnny asks immediately, mocking.

“From today, I guess,” Boss says, throwing the newspaper on the table. “I can’t believe they’re doing this.”

“I don’t think it’s that surprising taken you beat the guy with a baseball bat,” Shaundi shrugs.

“Who did I beat up this time?” Boss asks sincerely, but clearly annoyed. Johnny fights back a laughter.

“Uhh, Josh Birk? A few nights ago?”

“What does Birk have anything to do with Tee’N’Ay closing?”

“Tee’N’Ay’s closing?” Johnny grabs the second paper – The Daily Sky – from the table. Boss has already bent the paper to the page of the article. _Tee’N’Ay closes after a decade of service._ “This is bullshit.”

“Thank you! Someone who understands the importance of this!” Boss waves their hands towards Johnny. “Maybe if we bought the place we could save it – “

“Hold up, hold up,” Pierce cuts in. “What about Birk? Can you _please_ tell me why you beat him up?”

“Relax, Pierce. Birk was a snitch,” Shaundi says finally. “And speaking of that, Boss, I’ve got some news.”

Shaundi tells them only what she and Johnny have agreed to tell. It is essential for them to make sure it doesn’t seem like they know more than they could. All Boss needs to know right now is that a rivalling criminal organisation is expanding to Stilwater and is planning to walk over the Saints. The Syndicate, headed by Phillipe Loren, consists of three gangs in total, and the gangs’ strengths seem to balance each other out. And, to top it all off, Loren is stacked with money. They mean _real_ trouble. It is going to be hard to take them out.

“Let me get this straight. The bank job was going to be our stepping stone to their doorstep, right? Why didn’t we take it and just, you know, blow their brains out?” Boss asks, their voice significantly lower than it was before. “Now they know that _we know_ about this Philip whats-his-name and his gang since we pulled the plug on the gig.”

“Boss, these guys are the real deal. It’s not just some gang working out of Steelport, it’s a multi-continental crime organisation. This Loren guy is not to be taken lightly, okay?” Shaundi tries but fails to sound convincing. “If Loren had a business proposition, I’m pretty sure he’ll want to throw it at us as soon as possible. Maybe we should just wait until they come knocking?”

“ _What?”_

“It’d give us the home-ground advantage,” Johnny adds, just like they had planned. Feed Boss the intel, make sure they stay put. And hope the fish bites.

Boss kicks the table in front of them, and Johnny prepares for them to lash out.

“Fuck! _Fine,_ ” Boss bites, annoyed.

An apparent relief shows on Shaundi’s face, but gladly Boss fails to notice it. Boss rounds the bar counter to grab a beer, and heads for the stairs, violently kicking last night’s clutter away from their path. Pierce is about to get up from his chair to shout after Boss – probably something about the movie and its fate – but Johnny stops him with a stern glance. They should all know better than to rile up the Boss any more.

 

* * *

 

 The Saints have ruined Philippe Loren’s plans.

Gazing down at Steelport below him, Loren pours himself a glass of whiskey. A very luxurious brand, of course, he wouldn’t have his drinks any other way. Loren runs his city from one of the four skyscrapers gracing the horizon. The three other towers belong to the street gangs he has _taken under his wing,_ as he likes to think. Petty street gangs, whose leaders have no idea of how the world works. How to run an empire.

Loren downs his whiskey and sets the glass on his desk. _Forming_ the empire had been the hardest part. Or maybe not the _hardest_ , but the one that had required the most work. He had formed (read: taken over) the Morningstar gang back in Europe and led them to the top of the European organised crime groups. Today nothing leaves the borders of Europe without Loren or his ever-so-faithful DeWynter sisters knowing. Viola and Kiki are a treasure, he knows this, and they follow Loren with blue eyes sparkling. The two of them would one day inherit the entire Syndicate. When it had become time to spread the Morningstar’s wings, Loren had taken the DeWynters with him and moved their headquarters to Steelport.

In Steelport, however, the Morningstar ran into opposition. The local street gangs, the Luchadores and the Deckers, were fighting over the rulership of the city. Their combat powers had been mismatched; While the Luchadores relied on physical power and showmanship, the Deckers worked in the dark with computers and technology. But, in the end, the opposition from the street gangs had been futile. The Morningstar packed a lot more intelligent power, a lot more physical power, and a lot more charm when it came down to winning over the public of the city. The civilians – and even the politicians – had been quick to appreciate the stability and the _money_ that the Morningstar rolled in.

Loren had had every intention to simply obliterate the two gangs. Eddie Pryor of the Luchadores had been invited on a yacht, along with Matt Miller of the Deckers, to discuss business. According to Loren’s plan there was never going to be any business meetings, of course, for the entire yacht had been rigged with dynamite. Loren had gotten the idea from a news story he had heard earlier; A gang-banger gone out of control had been blown up on a yacht by their own leader. An inspirational story, but Loren keeps forgetting where he heard it. In the nick of time Loren had changed the plans – he had boarded the yacht himself and proposed a deal. And so, the Syndicate had been born.

Similar plans were made for the leader of the Saints, but the Saints ruined it. The DeWynters had bought their way into the Stilwater police department (the chief of police had been resistant, first, but the money had changed his mind) and they had planted their own men within the Saints themselves. The Saints-Ultor Media Group held a lot of power in the city with a lot of money and gunpower, but it wasn’t nearly as much as the Syndicate could afford. It hadn’t even been _hard_. The Saints were supposed to rob a bank that was already protected by the Syndicate, they were to be captured, and they were to be released into the custody of Loren. Loren would have proposed them a business deal – a similar he offered everyone – and if faced with opposition, the group would have been annihilated. Simple as that.

But there had been a leak. Josh Birk had been a weak link, apparently. The man has disappeared, but quite honestly Loren doesn’t even care. Better for him to stay hidden. A new plan of action is in place.

It is time to pay the leader of the Saints a visit.

 

* * *

 

As the day starts to fall into dusk, the Purgatory wakes up. Clubbers fill every nook and corner, alcohol and other substances begin to flow, and the usual DJ makes sure talking in a normal volume is damn near impossible. Johnny makes sure to leave before the place gets overcrowded.

Johnny remembers the Purgatory _before_ it was a club, when it was an abandoned hotel sunk underneath sea level. He remembers the shithole it had been, and how they had turned it into a decent headquarters for the Saints. Boss still had their bedroom and their office in there (not that they really used that office for anything else but storing weaponry), and usually you found Saints loitering around at any time of the day. Now the club screams of emptiness during the day and at night there’s a fucking _bodyguard_ standing at the door of Boss’s room! Now it is more about paying customers and less about the Saints. Just like a whole lot of other things as well, like that movie. It’s not about the Saints, Johnny thinks. It’s about popularity, it’s about fans, it’s about _money_.

Even the stairway up to the roof of the building has clubbers loitering inside. A few are so high they probably don’t even notice Johnny, but a couple making out take note of him as he passes them by. They all wear purple, but it’s impossible to know if they are officially Saints.

The night wind is like a warm, gentle kiss on his skin when Johnny steps up to the rooftop. Music from down below sounds muffled and the chatter and laughter of people is indistinct. The lights of the helipad are out, but Johnny can make out a figure at the far side of the roof. A line of smoke rises from Boss’s cigarette and a half-smoked pack is laying beside them.

“Bummer about Tee’N’Ay,” Johnny says as he approaches.

Boss blows some smoke up in the air as a reply. Johnny takes it as an invitation to join them and sits down next to them. He _could_ ask something along the lines of _Are you okay?_ or _Wanna vent it out?_ But that’s not the Johnny way. Or the _Boss way_ , for that matter. They don’t _talk_ about feelings, Johnny just knows. He knows exactly what is going through their mind, and Boss knows his business better than anyone.

However, things are completely different now; Their _pasts_ are different now. In Johnny’s past Aisha had died, but this Boss here doesn’t remember it ever happening. Boss is happily unaware of what is going on with Johnny (and Shaundi), and what could have happened if they would have gone through with the bank gig. However, while Johnny can’t know for sure what is going through Boss’s mind right now, he still knows how their mind works. The combination of the missed opportunity to fuck someone up and the fact that they have to _sit still_ _and_ _wait_ is overbearing for Boss. Hence the beer, the pack of cigarettes and storming out on their lieutenants.

On one hand, Johnny hopes that the real Boss would appear soon. Whoosh this alternative Boss away and immediately things would get that much easier. It shouldn’t take long now that the pattern has changed, should it? No airplanes, no sudden disappearances or fake deaths, no Zinyak so far. On the other hand, Johnny wonders if he should just take this chance and embrace it. He has gotten a second chance at life, at being a Saint, at supporting the Boss, at falling in–

“You should be reading the paper more,” Boss says out of the blue and takes yet another drag off of their cigarette.

“Why?”

Boss offers their pack of cigarettes to Johnny, instead of replying. As Johnny refuses, he tries studying Boss’s facial expression. It reveals nothing, as usual.

The smell of the cigarette is nostalgic. Boss used to smoke in front of the Purgatory before heading out for jobs and often Johnny would join them. When the Saints’ popularity took a turn on the rise, Boss moved their smoking habits up to the roof, away from the prying eyes. Ever since Johnny knew where to find Boss when they stormed out in anger.

That had been new too, Johnny remembers, the storming out. _Before_ Boss always took their anger out on something, on _someone_. And they got angry easily. Johnny was used to it, it was a part of who Boss was. The change in the life of the Saints probably has something to do with Boss calming down. Or maybe it is something else. Johnny shakes his head to get rid of the thoughts forming in his head. The memories. The long periods of not talking to each other with no apparent reason. Johnny’s apparent displeasure of the Saints’ popularity. Boss spending their time by themselves rather than with someone. With all the murderous habits they both possessed, in the end they always preferred company over solitude. Each other’s company, more often than not.

Everything had started turning uncomfortable. They hadn’t been talking to each other, and the last talk they had was in the jail cell with Johnny announcing his discontentment towards the Saints. He never got to hear Boss’s opinion. And then the airplane happened, and the next time they met was in a world without Earth, with space ships, with new people and lost opportunities. Everything went wrong.

_Not this time, though,_ Johnny has decided. And for once he hopes they actually talked about things instead of just… Well, this.

A sigh leaves Johnny’s lips, and he lays his back down on the rooftop, Boss’s shoes next to his ear.

“Thanks,” Boss speaks, just as suddenly as before.

Johnny lifts his head slightly to see Boss’s face, but only sees the smoke rings rising up in the air.

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Just felt right to say it,” Boss says. “For accompanying me, I guess.”

A smile spreads on Johnny’s lips. A wider smile than is appropriate for the situation, but he can’t help the butterflies. He must have been doing _something_ right.

“Don’t mention it.”

Johnny’s new phone rings and breaks the moment. Because of the strange ringtone it takes him a while to realise it’s his. It turns out to be Shaundi, calling from downstairs.

“Johnny, are you with Boss?” she asks, but continues before Johnny can answer. “They’re here. Loren and his lieutenants are here, along with Killbane and Matt Miller. And I think Matt is awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the wait, this was a very hard chapter to write because English isn't my first language. Nevertheless, I want to thank EVERYONE who has left comments to this fic or left kudos, I am so happy about the feedback! Thank you so so much and I hope you like where this is going! This story still has a long way to go, so stay tuned!


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